CHAPTER THIRTY
wake the dead


"Whoever lives by believing in me will never die." —John 11:26


The skies in Birmingham were clear on Black Star Day for the first time in many years, and a pure kind of light fell down on the streets like shards of glass—too bright. Beatrice blinked back her self-suffering tears as she made her way to the Garrison where the men were drinking, ready to look her own misery in the eye as soon as she found Tommy. She had fought back and forth for a hundred different things over these last few miserable months: peace, power, love, home, and now she had no clue what it was she wanted. Stupid, stupid girl. She had a great many flaws, but stupid was unforgivable.

When she arrived at the Pub, she expected to find the men in bright spirits. Instead, Jeremiah Jesus was storming through, Arthur at his side, something grave on his face. "Where's Tommy?" he asked.

"I don't—I don't know," Trixie stumbled. "I just got here a minute ago."

"Tommy?" Arthur hollered, his loud footsteps echoing as he yanked open the door to the snug. "Tommy!"

The drinking had slowed, and Trixie tried desperately to shove away her panicking about Polly, her worries about the business, her rotten, horrible love for Tommy, and instead pushed open the door to the back hallway. There was Tommy—but he wasn't alone. He was chest to chest with Grace, head bowed. "What—" Trixie started. What's happening? What were you saying? What have you kept from me? "Hello?"

"Excuse me," Grace said, not looking away from Tommy as she ducked and made her way towards the back door. Trixie seized her arm, yanking her back.

"What's going on?" Trixie demanded.

"Tommy!" Arthur was getting closer. Suddenly the five of them were gathered in the hallway, and the walls seemed to be inching inwards, and Trixie tried to imagine what the hell business Tommy and Grace had alone in a dark hallway while the rest of his men were outside, and tried to figure out what Jeremiah had seen that warranted such urgency. "Tell him," Arthur said, pointing at the priest. "Tell him what you just told me."

Jeremiah hesitated. "Just heard there's two vans driving up the Stratford Road. An old corporal of mine said he recognized some of the men." Trixie knew before he finished where this was going, and prayed she was wrong. Please, no, no, no. "He said it's the Kimber boys, and they're heading this way."

Tommy's mouth fell open, and he turned his eyes to Trixie. "Everybody out," he demanded. He pointed to his wife. "Except you. You stay."

"I—"

"Now!" Tommy shouted. "I'm not asking again."

Arthur and Jeremiah evacuated, Grace close behind, and Trixie gritted her teeth. She didn't want to let Grace go that easily. Not when she had spied on them for months, and would probably leave town to save herself the trouble she'd spent months orchestrating. But wanting wasn't enough. Trixie was alone with her husband, and for the first time in their months-long sham of a marriage, she found herself afraid. "Campbell," she said. "He didn't just want the guns."

"You need to leave," said Tommy.

"You just told me to stay."

"You need to leave Birmingham, I mean," he clarified.

Trixie gaped at him. "No." She stuttered. "I—you knew the risks, there was always a chance he would see through me. I was plucked off of that betting table and shoved into this. You can't exile me over a variable that I accounted for, and that you approved!"

He stepped forward. Trixie stepped back. The wall hit her hard. "I'm not asking."

"I don't care." She tilted her chin up. "I'm going to see this through."

"Beatrice," he warned. "I don't have time for this. The Lees are halfway to the tracks, and Kimber's come here for my head, and if you don't leave now I can't promise you'll come out of this alive."

"Oh, please," she scoffed. "You couldn't promise that before, and it never stopped you."

"Well, before, Campbell wasn't telling Chinese prostitutes of his plans to kill you, was he?"

Trixie's mouth fell open. "You can't trust that."

"Can't I?" Tommy pulled away, slamming his fist into the wall opposite her. Trixie flinched. "It's not like he doesn't have reason. It's not like he couldn't get away with it."

"It's not like he would want the trouble for himself, either," she disagreed. "You think Campbell is going to want the heat that comes with a killing? That's why he brought Kimber into this. Because Kimber will kill you, so he doesn't have to."

Tommy's mouth flattened into a line. "I don't have time for this. If you want to take that risk, take it."

"Because you don't care if I live or die, do you?" she shouted. "Only whether I'm good for business."

"You don't know a fucking thing," he warned, his voice low. Trixie stumbled back, her heart thudding heavy enough to shake her whole body. Her husband opened his mouth as if he had more to say, but didn't—somehow, that was worse. Please, please explain, she wanted to say, Just care, just have a good reason. But Tommy just pushed through the doors and left her. Trixie leaned back against the wall, a horrible ache in her chest threatening to push her to tears. She had no idea how they were going to get through the day—let alone what happened after.

She had assumed that Campbell would take the guns and leave. The police had known about their operations for long enough without taking action; why should that change? And now months of planning had gone down the drain. Trixie knew what happened when empires overexpanded, and she knew what happened to the gangs that lost their battles. "Shit!" she hissed, kicking her boot back against the wall. The crack in the board scared her, and she jerked forward.

It was her fault. It was all her fault. Stupid, stupid girl.

Stepping back out into the pub, Trixie found the Garrison empty. Only Grace remained, gathering things into a purse and placing a hat on her head. "Absolutely not," said Trixie. No way in hell she was just leaving.

Grace looked up. "It's not really up to you," She put her purse down on the counter. "You're not so strong without Tommy around, are you? Look at your makeup, Beatrice. You're a mess."

Without hesitating, Trixie reared back and socked Grace in the cheek. The blonde stumbled back against the counter, taking a row of glasses with her. She cradled her face with those delicate hands of hers, already donning white gloves for the train. "Don't you dare speak to me like that." She reached for Grace's purse on the counter, rifling through until she found what she was looking for: a handgun. Its barrel was short, and it fit nicely in her hand. Clearly, it had been built for a woman. "Especially not when I'm the one with the gun."

Grace pursed her lips. "You are threatening an Agent of the Crown."

Trixie shrugged, the weapon in her hands bringing a sort of clarity to her mind. "Not like it's my first time. Sit down." Grace shot her a glare, but obliged, crossing around the bartop with her hands raised. "Not there," Trixie said. "Table." When she was seated, Trixie switched on the gun's safety, and put it into her own purse. "Can we be civil?" Trixie asked. "Or do you plan to run?"

"You're the one who punched me."

"Don't tempt me, or I'll do it again."

Grace pressed her lips together, but relented, putting her hand back on her face. Her nose was bleeding, red all over those pretty white gloves, and Trixie resisted the urge to smile. "What do you want?"

"What were you and Tommy doing just now?"

"Talking."

"About?"

Grace rolled her eyes. "Can I have a rag?"

Trixie sighed, picking the gun up off the table and heading behind the counter, careful not to leave her back turned for more than a moment. When she returned to the table, she tossed the rag carelessly at Grace. The blonde snatched it away midair—a warning. Those gloves could come off and fight, too, if she wanted.

"He asked if I was going to kill you," Grace said after a moment. She held the rag to her face with one hand and used her elbow to yank her glove off the other, before switching sides. Trixie bit back an offer to help. "Campbell had him spooked with some rumor."

"Were you going to kill me?" Trixie asked.

"No," Grace said easily. Almost scoffing. "No, Trixie. The Crown wouldn't waste an assassin on you. Campbell might get you shot out of personal vendetta, but it wouldn't be sanctioned."

"He could get away with it, though."

Grace shrugged. "Were you actually onto me the whole time?"

The pivot in conversation gave Trixie momentary pause, and she considered it. "We were suspicious. Pretty girl like you doesn't just show up out of nowhere in a place like this. Irish barmaid insisting on a job in the worst joint in town, plus Irish copper here, plus Tommy's stolen guns—I'm good at math, but it doesn't take that much work to put those three facts together."

"Damn it," said Grace. "I told them that, you know. Send me in before him, give me a better cover. Let me drop the accent. But they didn't think I could pull it off unsupervised."

Trixie tilted her head and recalled Tommy's initial reason for the ring. You're a bad liar. "Maybe we're more alike than I thought," she said hesitantly. They had both been spies for powerful men on the opposite sides of the line the law carved through the sand. Trixie loathed to compare Tommy to Campbell, but they were both so hungry. For power. For control. "If you took the absolute value of our numbers we would probably come out the same."

"Depends on how well I actually know you, I'd say," said Grace.

"I didn't lie to you about everything," Trixie admitted. "It was easier to save it for when it counted, but I liked—I liked talking to you, once I got to know you a bit better." She cleared her throat. "Almost everything about Tommy was—wrong, yes, but I was honest about Luca, and my father being a priest and my mother being a refugee, and the things that I thought I wanted."

"Thought you wanted?"

Trixie narrowed her eyes. "Nice try, but I'm not telling you anything else."

"You and your secrets." Grace sighed. "I think it's a quality of womanhood, almost. Holding things in our fists until they quiet. I have my secrets, too. One particularly that I keep close to my heart."

"What's that?" Trixie drawled.

"You'll find out soon enough," Grace promised, a menacing sort of gleam in her eye. "I need a drink."

"So pour one."

"Nose's still bleeding."

"Then I guess we'll have to wait."

Silence. Then, "I didn't lie to you about everything, either."

Trixie arched an eyebrow. "No?"

"No." The blonde sighed. "It's like you said. Sometimes it's just easier to tell the truth, even though it's messier. But I am from Galway, and my father was a cop, and he and Campbell were friends until the IRA killed him. I have twin brothers. I had a terrible first time. And my name is my name."

"Names are a funny thing," Trixie said. She didn't think Grace would understand it—she hadn't spent the last six months tortured by a sudden new surname. She was Bea, and then Trixie, and then Beatrice, and sometimes Mrs. Shelby, Miss Price. Everyone had a bite of her, and she was just trying to hold it together long enough to survive these raids. "Do I look like a Beatrice to you? It feels so dreadfully serious to me."

"You're a very serious person," Grace answered. "You must've gotten it for a reason."

"My father named me after the woman in the Vita Nuovo. It was my mother's favorite."

"Ah. What was her name?"

"Sun-Hi. You won't find records of her."

"I wasn't going to look. Your dead mother won't be of much use to me."

Trixie shrugged. Fair point. "Billy Kimber's boys are on the way to town. They're going to kill Tommy. Was that part of the plan?"

Grace sighed. "Not the whole time. But you dropped an opportunity into Campbell's lap, and he may be swine, but he's still smart. You didn't really think he'd rely on information from you, when you've spent months lying and admitted it to his face, did you?"

She chewed her lip. Trixie didn't know what she had expected; Grace hadn't waltzed into town looking for friends either. Despite all this, and the mark on her head, she was glad that Polly had roped her into things. To be an accountant for a business like this, knowing nothing of the strange shadows following her home at night, to be unassuming when befriending nice barmaids, to be a girl in a city of wolves—that was hell. Knowledge was a burden, but it was better than the dark. "Will they make arrests?"

The barmaid was quiet for a minute, lowering the bloody rag to the table, before shaking her head. "No. Campbell knows that his officers are only half-loyal, and there would be a mutiny."

"Alright," said Trixie softly. She didn't curse herself for it. "Well, I have places to be."

Grace leaned forward and cleared her throat. "Can I just ask you something?" Before Trixie could respond, she continued. "Why do you stay with him? You could do better. They're looking for more female spies in my unit, and you could be taken seriously. People like us are underestimated. We have to use that to our advantage."

Trixie almost considered it. "Why are you telling me this?"

Grace hesitated, before shrugging. "I just…I think you could be something."

It was a guaranteed way out. But Trixie had always been something of a gambler. She wouldn't have gotten in this deep if she wasn't. "I plan to be," she said. "Just…not with you. And not with the Crown."

"With him?" It seemed to almost pain Grace to say it. "He'll never let you be anything. Not if it poses a threat to him."

"Maybe not with him either, then," she said. "I can make it on my own."

Grace sighed and nodded towards the gun in Trixie's hand. She flexed her fingers; Trixie had forgotten about the weapon. "So are you going to kill me, now?"

Trixie hadn't even considered that. She had just wanted answers. "No," she said.

"Tommy would want you to."

Trixie scoffed. "Alright? Are you trying to get me to do it?" Grace shook her head. "You were my friend, sort of. If you leave town now and let this get sorted out without creating any more trouble for all of us, then I have no reason to."

"Okay," said Grace. She stood up. "I'll need my gun back."

"No," said Trixie. She gripped the handle a little tighter. "You tripped and dropped it into the Cut."

"I'll get a reprimand."

"That's not really my problem."

Grace huffed, but snatched her purse off the bar, losing all hope of getting her gun back. "I guess this is goodbye."

"I guess so," said Trixie, and a horrible sadness seized hold of her heart. She didn't even consider Grace her friend, but now that this nightmare was ending, something else would have to take its place. Something unfamiliar. Something worse.

The blonde pushed the door open, stepped out into the street, and let it swing shut behind her. Nothing had changed, really. So why did it feel like the world was about to end?


A/N: hello! bit of a short chapter today, but there's another one right on its tail, hopefully going to be up tuesday or wednesday. i sadly missed the one year of baptism by fire's publication yesterday, but consider this a belated anniversary gift to all of you lovely people! it's crazy to me that this fic, plotted after watching a single episode of peaky blinders, has spiraled into a 500-page document that crashes every time i open it and is a whopping 160k+ words.

thank you so much for reading! and thank you to NotSureHowToMingle, EleanorJames, Idcam, RachelLynnexx, Watertogondor, Figurativelydying, and gissyfernandez for commenting on the last chapter! please let me know what you thought of this one as well and i will see you soon :)


Chapter 31 / An Eye For An Eye

"I'm not asking you to leave because I don't trust you," Tommy burst out, looking like he was in immense pain from the burden of his confession. "I'm asking you to leave because I want you safe. I need you safe. Please."

Trixie shook her head, reaching into her pocket for bullets to put in her gun. "I'm not a coward, Tommy. And I'm not going to become one just because you're getting squeamish."